SHOCKING: Jessica Pegula makes ‘tough’ admission after confirming….
Jessica Pegula makes ‘tough’ admission after confirming Stuttgart decision.
World No 5 Jessica Pegula has become one of the big casualties of poor tournament scheduling on the WTA Tour as she has withdrawn from the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.
The Stuttgart event is one of the biggest tournaments on the calendar after the Grand Slams and the WTA 1000 competitions and the initial 2024 entry list boasted nine of the top 10 in the WTA Rankings and nine major winners in total.
World No 1 Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, Elena Rybakina, Angelique Kerber and Emma Raducanu are some of the big names in the main draw.
But many of the stars who entered the WTA 500 tournament had a quick turnaround time over the past few days as the majority of players competed in the Billie Jean King Cup play-offs over the weekend before dashing off to Germany.
For some players it was straightforward as they played in their BJK Cup matches in Europe and the trip was quite short, but for players from the United States it was more difficult.
Pegula was part of the US team that defeated Belgium 4-0 in Orlando and she initially thought she would be able to make the mad dash to Stuttgart, but it wasn’t to be and she opted to withdraw.
“Yeah, I pulled out of Stuttgart a couple of days ago just because the turnaround is just too tough,” the world No 5 said.
“I was thinking I could maybe go and play, but the flight situation wasn’t great getting there. I’d have to leave tonight (Sunday). I just didn’t really feel like it was worth it. Plus it kind of extends my trip into Europe a week to 10 days earlier.”
Pegula will instead spend the week practicing on clay at home before heading to Europe for the Madrid Open, which gets underway on April 22.
The Italian Open follows immediately as it starts on May 6 before the clay-court campaign comes to a conclusion with the French Open starting on May 26 at Roland Garros
The American added: “I just wanted to get a really good kind of week at home on the clay, back to clay, to prep for Madrid, Rome and French.”
The good news for Pegula is that she didn’t have any points to defend in Stuttgart as she didn’t play last year, but she will defend 215 points in Madrid, 25 points in Rome and 130 at Roland Garros.